Chapter 3: Save part of yourself

I hope you caught up with your dreams

'Time is fluid.'

Castiel remembered saying that to Dean once. Well, time had felt very linear for the last three years. He eyed the house and waited.

Light skimmed the horizon. Castiel averted his gaze from the house and stared at the sky. The sky seemed to stare straight back at him. A million twinkling eyes. He had noticed this habit of anthropomorphising trees, chipmunks, lamps. It was most likely a by-product of his non-corporeality.

There was no body; only memories. I shouldn't have come, he thought. I should leave right now, he told himself. He stayed.

Dean had said a number of things too. The last time they'd seen each other Dean had been brutally honest.

'The way I feel... I'm not even mad.'

'Don't look at me. Look at your feet.'

'I'm done. We're quitting. Sam and me. Feet.'

And then silence, except for that thing that Sam had said which seemed to be part joke and part accusation.

'Friends don't leave friends in Purgatory.'

(***)

Opening the back door, Dean lost half his morning coffee.

'Son of a bitch,' he muttered, watching as the boards soaked up the liquid. That would leave a stain. Whatever. He turned to watch the sunrise. It involved a lot of squinting. Lauren followed him out and hugged him from behind.

It was kind of nice, because it was cold and he was too much of a man to go back inside to put on something warmer. So, a shirt and Lauren to keep him warm. He sipped what was left of his coffee and sighed. This whole domesticity experiment wasn't half bad.

Dean straightened up. He had the strangest feeling. There was something out there.

(***)

It wasn't a glitch. Castiel was little more than a thought. A soul floating around, maybe. Nobody could see him. Yet, Dean so plainly chose to stare at the spot that Castiel was currently not occupying that it was eerie. Castiel felt like holding his breath, knowing how ridiculous that was. He had no body and thus no breath to hold.

The woman said something. Dean frowned, but smiled and shrugged. He looked peaceful and so very much like he belonged right there on that porch with her arms around him.

Love. The word came to Castiel unbidden. Dean had found love. The sight of Dean with the woman opened up something inside of Castiel. Something that had always been Dean's. Something useless. Something that hurt. He left immediately. He wished he'd not come.

(***)

'Honey?'

Dean grimaced at the term of endearment. Lauren was breaking the rules. They'd agreed not to be nauseating about their relationship, so no 'darling' and cutesy shit like that. He looked at the same spot, but whatever had been there was gone. Dean turned around and saw Lauren patting her stomach.

'What are you doing?'

The expression on her face couldn't exactly be called happy. Fuck.

'I'm pregnant.'

Castiel, Dean suddenly realised. It had been Castiel. He leaned against the porch railing as if his life depended on it. Castiel had just been right there and Dean had let him disappear to parts unknown. Trying to breathe evenly, Dean observed how his heart raced. Lauren cautiously approached him, a worried frown creasing her forehead.

'You're being weird. Why are you being weird? Are you... Are you having a panic attack?' she asked. Dean shook his head, ignoring the tightness in his chest and the rising feel of something that was definitely not panic.

'Nothing's wrong,' he choked out. She didn't even dignify that with a response. Just called him on his crap with one of those 'oh, really?' looks of hers that he usually liked.

'Yeah, okay. I don't know. It's nothing. I'm feeling kind of...'

Stupid? Awful? So many things applied. Mostly like a grade A moron. How could he have allowed Cas to vanish without at least trying to talk to him? That was possibly the dumbest thing he'd ever done. Dean was starting to sweat now too and, oh God, Lauren was pregnant. Icing on the cake.

'Try to slow down your breathing. If it's a panic attack...' Lauren suggested. She was attempting to be helpful and in the process she was coming much too close.

'Stop saying that. I'm fine.'

He wasn't even on the same fucking planet as fine and they both knew it, but there was no way in hell that Dean was going to tell Lauren that. Still, he needed to talk to someone. He needed to talk to Sam. Pity that his brother was more than two thousand miles away.

Fake. The word popped into his mind. Not Castiel; Castiel had definitely been there. His life was fake. He was playing at being a civilian. At being normal. And fuck if it wasn't exactly like the hollow dream with the jinn. Beware of what you wish for and all that crap. A dozen states between Sam and him instead of the distance in the wish, but other than that it was basically the same.

Lauren was a therapist instead of a nurse. Instead of working at a garage, Dean owned a garage. His mother was still dead.

Yeah, this was like a bad dream, except with real people.